


(Bringing Up) The Baby

by triggernometry



Series: Slice of Afterlife [3]
Category: Flight Rising
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-08
Updated: 2018-11-08
Packaged: 2019-08-20 16:02:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16558832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/triggernometry/pseuds/triggernometry
Summary: Booth thinks justshowingHaj the egg will be easier than telling him about it, because Booth always thinks the hardest thing is the easiest.





	(Bringing Up) The Baby

It's not that Klagohaj hasn't _noticed_ Booth's been acting funny. By the same token, he's never known Booth to be exactly normal and her fits of rage and melancholy -- while lately grown fewer and farther between as well as less intense -- have become as natural to him as the endless pacing of the tide on the Rusting Shores.

She's started disappearing more and at different times, sometimes stealing off right in the middle of the day to do ... whatever. Klagohaj assumes she's looking for new marks at first -- but she usually likes to work quickly on those, and after a week with no targets or even an unaccounted-for pile of gold or a new bandolier or anything, he decides new marks isn't it. She's never been much for conversation, but now she hardly speaks to him at all. Not even to tell him to move downwind on the warmer days, which is a first.

He tried making a joke about it, and she didn't even look at him, much less crack a smile. (Klagohaj has made her smile at least once that he can prove, so he knows it is _technically_ possible.)

He's considered following her, of course, but if death has given him one thing, it is a surprising sense of self-preservation -- so he does not follow her.

It's been a week and a half since the weirdness started. The sun set three hours ago and took Booth with it; she'd disappeared shortly after supper without so much as a so-long-soldier and Klagohaj's been trying to fend off a pretty-bad,-not-very-good,-actually feeling ever since. He's a dead fool but he's not _stupid_ ; he knows he loves Booth, in a weird way. He can't say as she loves him any kind of way back, but he doesn't care. If there's anything he knows, it's that life doesn't work out the way you want it to and too much focus on the small stuff only weighs you down after while.

Klagohaj sits in their shared scrap-tent and worries about Booth and does not light the lamp even after the dark settles good and final around him. He stares at the tent-flap entrance to their not-quite-a-home and picks absently at the talisman ingrown around his neck. The glide of warm, moist smoothness against his fingertips tells him the eyeball at its center is flicking restlessly in all directions.

"You worried about her too, huh, lil fella," he says. He's taken to talking to the talisman when no one else is around -- not that Booth would mind, he figures, it just feels silly talking to something with no capacity for answering.

The tent-flap billows inward and then Booth slips inside. He can tell by the way she's not got a light in her hands and the stiffness of her movements that she's betting on him being asleep, or the tent empty.

"Booth?" he says, not wanting to give her too much of a start.

He can feel her go still and tense in the dark. She doesn't answer right away. She shifts in place a little bit, and that's when he notices she's carrying something.

"You all right? Kinda worried me a little bit, there," he tries.

"I'm fine," Booth says. Her voice is -- strange. Almost pinched-sounding. Does he detect a note of ... fear? From _Booth_?

"Don't sound like it."

"I'm _fine_ , Haj," Booth says and now he _knows_ she's scared, because now she's angry.

"What you got there?"

Booth backs out of the scrap-tent without a word and the flap closes limply behind her. Klagohaj mutters some ill-tempered oath, gets to his feet, and follows her out into the close night air. It's the middle of summer, the air is heavy with moisture and heat and, this far out in the Crinoline, a faintly salty, tangy smell as wind from the Shores blows inland. Booth's already stalked past the glowing remains of the campfire and protective ring of stones and deadwood by the time Klagohaj spots the outline of her form in the greenish miasma-light.

"Booth! Bringer's _sake_ , Booth!"

He jogs to catch up to her, reaching out with one hand to catch her cloak. She twists away from him, altogether too dramatic, and nearly stumbles. He catches her elbow and helps to steady her, and she glares up at him with a level of fury he hasn't seen since the night Daur's Caravan went up in flames.

"Let _go_ ," she says in a voice as low and deadly as a knife in the gut. He obeys. He has to -- she's not used the talisman against him for going on near a year now but he feels the constricting pull of the thing around his neck now as strongly as he's ever done before.

He's not going to lie: it hurts. It must show on his face, because Booth has at least the courtesy to look a little bit like she regrets it.

Klagohaj holds his hands up in a helpless gesture. "Booth," he says. "C'mon, now. What's got into you? You been runnin' out on me an' actin' all weird for almost two weeks now. You creepin' me out even more than you usually do."

That earns him a little half-twitch from the corner of her mouth; the ghost of a ghost of a grin.

"What's goin' on, Booth?" No answer. Her expression hardens again. "You runnin' gigs without me now?" Silence. "You find buried treasure out there you don't wanna share?" Nothing. "You find someone else?" A pause. "...That you _also_ don't wanna share?"

The last thing seems to get at her, somehow. Booth regards him with inscrutable eyes. They've never really discussed the contours of their relationship before, and on second thought, it sounds strange even to Klagohaj's own ears to just bring it up like that. He feels a little sting of guilt, and the urge to apologise, but then Booth finally speaks.

"It's none of those things," she says. Her voice is low. He leans in a little to listen harder.

When she doesn't continue after a few moments, he offers a simple, prompting, "Okay?" She sighs.

"There's a nest," she says, voice so quiet now he can hardly hear her.

"What?"

"There's a _nest_ , Haj," she says, louder. "There's _eggs_. Well, there _were_ eggs. There's _an_ egg."

She shifts her grip on whatever she's been carrying this whole time and Klagohaj has a brief, intense vision of the first time he laid eyes on her: lit in sickly orange lamp-light in a lean-to out in the Mother's Teeth, arms full of a bundle of oilcloth inside of which the talisman pulsed and hummed and out of which the damn thing leapt right for his head like a spider straight from nightmares. He shudders at the memory, briefly forgetting to process what Booth's showing him now. When his brain catches up with his eyes he feels a little bit like a Wastebred just hauled off and kicked him in the stomach.

It's an egg.

Booth is holding an egg.

It's at least three times the size of Booth's banged-up old pearl and in considerably better condition, all greeny-red and shining slickly in the miasmic skyglow. The skin of it is soft, as Plague eggs are, and, as he stares, he can see something pulsing just under the surface.

"Uh," Klagohaj says, "huh."

Booth isn't looking at the egg; she's staring intently at his face. Klagohaj swallows with a dry click in his throat and blinks, shifting his gaze to meet hers.

"Is it...?" He doesn't know how to say that question out loud.

Booth sighs. She looks down at the egg. "Yours and mine?"

Klagohaj swallows again. It's not the talisman making his throat feel tight this time.

"I didn't know how to tell you," she says, still staring down at the egg in her arms. "I didn't know if I _should_ tell you." She takes a deep breath. "I wanted to crush them all at first."

"Booth--"

"I _didn't_. I _wanted_ to. I _didn't_." She looks up at him again, her expression fierce. "The others didn't make it of their own accord. This one stayed."

"It's, uh" -- he gropes for something useful to say, lands on: "It's big."

Booth laughs. Actually _laughs_. It's not a cruel sound -- it's probably the prettiest thing he's ever heard outside of a heavy purse of coins hitting a tabletop -- and so surprising he just about jumps out of his skin.

"Yes, it is," she says. "It'll hatch soon. I – thought it would be easier if I showed you.” She pauses. ”Somehow.”

"Coulda used a little more warning," Klagohaj says, and then immediately regrets it, because Booth's expression turns almost pained. "It's fine," he adds quickly. "It is! I just, uh, I gotta meet my kid any minute now an' ain't even had my dust bath yet."

Booth eyes him. He gives her a lopsided grin, which seems to mollify her somewhat.

"We should get back inside," he says after a moment. Booth moves to wrap the egg up in its oilcloth again and shift it back to her hip. "Could I...?"

She stiffens a little at the half-formed question, looking not at him but at the empty space between them with an expression he can't quite read.

"Promise I won't drop it," he says. "Got no butter on my claws or nothin'." He stretches his arms out toward her -- not enough to touch or suggest he'll snatch the egg away, just making a bridge between them. She hesitates, then gives him the egg.

It's heavy. Heavier than he expected. He holds it to his chest and feels the pulse of it through his jacket.

"Hefty," he says, almost wonderingly.

They head back to the scrap-tent, slower this time. Booth watches him carefully; he knows she's convinced he's gonna drop the egg, and he knows better than to take offense. She never told him what happened to the last family she had -- but he knows she had one, and he knows they died. He's seen her skin under all the ragcloth and leather, and he knows whatever happened, it didn't happen easy.

In the scrap-tent, they spread the oilcloth over the bedroll and put the egg in the middle of it. Booth lights an oil-lamp and sets it on the stump-cum-table at the foot of the bedroll. Klagohaj wads up clothes and blankets and a few half-empty travel bags and props them up around the egg to keep it from rolling. They sit for a while, watching the egg in silence. At first, Klagohaj jumps every time the surface of the egg pulses with movement, but eventually the excitement wears off and he stands up with a stretch.

”Well,” he says. ”I'll put the kettle on.” Booth doesn't look away from the egg, but he can see her nod in the warm glow of the lamplight. Klagohaj leaves the scrap-tent without further ado.

Outside, it occurs to him that he has no idea what one ought to do on the advent both of learning of one's impending parenthood and the birth of one's first child. He's never been around for anybody's hatching, and the Greenteeth who raised him certainly never threw him a party. Somehow, baby showers never came up much while brokering deals between road agents in his old life.

He stirs up the embers in the firepit and builds up enough of a fire to cook with. He does not look beyond the edge of the stones and deadwood -- Booth's told him a hundred times that the ring will protect them, but it still gives him the creeps to see eyes watching him from the edge of the firelight.

He takes the kettle off its hook by the firepit, fills it with water from their stores, and sets it to boil. From their traveling bags he digs out enough powdered chicory for two, thinks better of it and returns to his knapsack to bring out the spoils of the special discovery he'd made a few weeks ago: a beehive with combs overflowing with meat honey. He breaks off a few pieces of the comb he brought back and drops them into a pair of tin mugs.

A flicker from the corner of his eye. He looks up before he can think twice, catches a pair of eyes hovering just beyond the rim of the firelight, just beyond the stone and deadwood ring. Klagohaj gestures at the edge of darkness with one of the mugs in his hands like it's the world's least impressive pistol.

"You get," he calls across the dark. Back when he was alive, Klagohaj would've been too petrified to yell at a Wasteland wanderer; he would've hid and burned a forest's worth of cedarbark and prayed to all Eleven and cried like a baby, put plainly.

The pair of eyes double, triple, quadruple, until a circular cluster of eyes is watching him from the dark.

"I got a kid on the way an' a lot of thoughts to sort through before it gets here an' I ain't got time for _you_. You _get_."

The cluster of eyes hesitates for a minute, then gets.

"Good," Klagohaj mutters, turning back to the kettle. Steam's begun to swirl lazily from its mouth, so he fills both mugs and heads back into the scrap-tent. Booth looks up as he enters.

”All good?” Klagohaj asks.

”Not here yet.”  
  
He's not sure if he should feel relieved. He passes a mug to Booth and sits on the floor beside the bedroll. He watches the blob of meat honey at the bottom of his cup drift lazily away from itself and dissolve. Booth, well – Booth is quiet. He's not sure what she's looking at.

”I guess I get it,” Klagohaj says. ”All the runnin' out an' sneakin' around an' weirdness an' stuff.” He looks up at her, finally. Her face is inscrutable in the lamplight. ”I ain't never thought about havin' kids before,” he continues. ”I'd probably get weird about it, too, I wake up with eggs one day.”  
  
”You don't exactly wake up with eggs, Haj.” Booth's tone is delightfully patient.

”Yeah, I know, but ... y'know.”  
  
”I know.”  
  
They study their mugs in silence for a minute. Klagohaj clears his throat. He takes a drink; it's too hot still, but he's not much bothered about burning his tongue. Pain's usually  the least of your troubles, when you're dead.

He takes a deep breath. ”I just mean, I'm, uh, I'm glad you didn't smash 'em an' I'm – I'm glad you told me.”

Booth stands. He's sure he's said something dumb – he usually does – but she says nothing. She drains her mug in one long pull – he almost kind of has to wince at that, _she_ ain't dead – and puts it aside. She doesn't _seem_ especially annoyed, with him or anything else. When she's done, she crosses the tent and – sits by him. He feels her tattered-up wing membrane shift against his own, feels the warmth coming off her. If he listens hard enough, he can hear her heartbeat.

That's another thing about being dead. He's always very aware of how alive everyone else is.

”How long's it usually take?” he asks.

Booth doesn't have time to answer before the egg starts in place so hard it tips over its protective cloth barrier and threatens to roll onto the floor. They both lunge forward at the same time, scrabbling to catch it and brace it before it can escape the bedroll altogether.

Crouching there in the dim lamplight, panting hard, cupping the smooth curve of the egg, Klagohaj looks at Booth with wide eyes. ”Y'think we woke it up?”

She doesn't answer. She puts her palm flush against the side of the egg and seems to listen for a moment.

”It's starting,” she says.

”What, _now?_ ” Klagohaj's voice rises a few unnecessary octaves and Booth fixes him with a serious eye.

”Yes. Now.”  
  
She moves forward to sit beside the egg on the bedroll, letting it rest against her haunch. She gestures to Klagohaj to join her and he clambers up on the other side of egg.

”What, uh – are you supposta do something?” He swallows. His throat is suddenly _very_ dry.

Booth shrugs. He's not sure what to make of that, so he just shuts up and follows her lead – his usual go-to in times of great confusion. The egg between them pulses and shudders, the movement growing more and more urgent until a seam begins to form along one side. Everything happens very quickly, then: the seam splits and something long and dark peeks out of the slit, Booth says, ”Ah, a ridgeback,” in a thoroughly unimpressed voice and then there's an unpleasant squishing as the egg's occupant flops out onto the oilcloth.

And there it is. It's indeed a ridgeback, dark and wiggling. Booth makes a soft, uncharacteristically gentle sound in her throat and the hatchling's head snaps toward her at once, mouth flopping open to give a squeaky reply. She plucks a kerchief from her pocket and begins the process of wiping away the residue from the egg.

Klagohaj isn't entirely sure how to react, so he just doesn't, for a while. He stays still and admires the swirling pattern of the baby's hide – dusty tan and dark brown and black, rippling like loose mud dried in the shape of the rain that formed it – and the dark barring along their new wings. Just like Booth. Finally, he reaches out with a slow, cautious hand and cups the baby's head against his palm, marveling at the softness of their skin and the toughness of the blunt bumps of spines-to-be.

And another, less resilient bump, lower than the nubs of future spines, somewhere just behind the hatchling's eyes. It's soft and giving under Klagohaj's thumb. The child gives an indignant squawk and pulls away as he pokes at the bump.

And then the hatchling's skin blossoms in spots of red: first just behind their eyes, then their neck, and chest, and sides – _everywhere_. Klagohaj gives a yelp and withdraws his hand as if burned. Booth starts, reflexively reaching for the child to stop them from tumbling onto the floor.

”Booth what the _hell_ did I hurt it? Is it hurt?” Klagohaj grips the hand that touched the baby with his other hand, like he's holding a snake to keep it from biting.

”Settle _down_ ,” she says. She scoops the baby up, hands under their armpits, and lifts them up for inspection in the lamplight. Klagohaj peers intently at the child's skin, half-expecting to see – well, he doesn't know what he'll see. Blood? Boils?  
  
”Eyes,” Booth says. ”It's just eyes.”

He stares, incredulous. Sure enough, the spots of red gleam back at him, each one with a thin black pupil matching the eyes in the hatchling's face. They blink rhythmically, each one after the other, and he sees the flicker go all the way down their tail.

”Is it, uh... normal?”

Booth lowers their child and fixes Klagohaj with an unimpressed gaze. ”Would the ab-dead thrall care to define his terms?”

”I just mean I ain't seen a dragon with a buncha eyes like that before.”

”In _this_ region? You've lead a sheltered life.”  
  
”No, I ain't. What, they got googly-eyed tails up in Dragonhome?”

”It's not unheard of anywhere. Only rare. Back home--” Booth stops. She's never used the words _back home_ around him before and he can't help but lean forward with interest. ”I've heard it's a blessing, a sign of divine favour.”

He leans back, waving a hand dismissively. ” _Pssh_. Sign of a dead daddy and a witch mamma, more like.”  
Booth's mouth curls up in a small smile. Her eyes flick back to the child in her arms, now currently gumming the part of her arm they can reach from this angle. Drool gleams on her skin in the light from the oil-lamp.

”More like,” Booth agrees.

**Author's Note:**

> Hmu on [tumblr](http://rifter-pride.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
